ICOs are a combination of donating and investment. Knowing that some frauds exist in the industry, the community has adopted self-governing best methods and principles concerning ICOs. Multiple platforms promised due-diligence of projects before enlisting them and giving the financial compensation the project team for accomplishing some pre-defined objectives. People also demanded multi-signature system to increase safety.
Some ICOs use a single Bitcoin public address to raise funds. This method is bad for privacy, but on the other hand, it is good when it comes to audit the money raised. Other ICOs use cryptocurrency protocols that already exist to create tokens. This simplifies the creation process. Some examples of protocols are NTX, Bitshares, NEM, Factom, Lisk or Counterparty.